Today's Stichomancy for Hillary Clinton

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

Yet neither conqueror nor conquered; So is the equal poise of this fell war. Here on this molehill will I sit me down. To whom God will, there be the victory! For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too, Have chid me from the battle, swearing both They prosper best of all when I am thence. Would I were dead! if God's good will were so; For what is in this world but grief and woe? O God! methinks it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain;

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott:

is so much concentrated in one strong moment of agonizing passion, that it can be understood and sympathized with at a single glance. I therefore presume that it may be acceptable as a hint to some one among the numerous artists who have of late years distinguished themselves as rearing up and supporting the British school.

Enough has been said and sung about

"The well-contested ground, The warlike Border-land,"

to render the habits of the tribes who inhabited it before the union of England and Scotland familiar to most of your readers.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard:

the forest that grew about her knees, wondering the while if the bones of Umslopogaas lay broken in that forest. Now as I journeyed, many tales had been told to me of this Ghost Mountain, which all swore was haunted, so said some, by men in the shape of wolves; and so said some, by the Esemkofu--that is, by men who have died and who have been brought back again by magic. They have no tongues, the Esemkofu, for had they tongues they would cry aloud to mortals the awful secrets of the dead, therefore, they can but utter a wailing like that of a babe. Surely one may hear them in the forests at night as they wail "Ai!-- ah! Ai--ah!" among the silent trees!

You laugh, my father, but I did not laugh as I thought of these tales;

Nada the Lily

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac:

recent political evolutions.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bidault (known as Gigonnet) The Government Clerks Gobseck The Vendetta Cesar Birotteau The Firm of Nucingen

Blondet, Emile Jealousies of a Country Town